Religion of Peace

Archive for February, 2011

WHEN I TRY to educate my fellow non-Muslims about basic Islamic doctrine, they often automatically assume I hate Muslims. They don’t have a way of reconciling my criticism with any model of the world they are familiar with, and the only way to understand me is to conclude I must just be a “hater” or have a prejudice against Arabs or Muslims. But I have found some success in clearing this up by explaining how I look at the whole subject. Something like this…

I think of Muslims as being divided into three categories. There are those who understand the doctrine well and believe in it and are committed to following its dictates. This is a relatively small percentage, although nobody knows how small. I would guess it is somewhere between five and twenty-five percent of Muslims. That’s a pretty big range, I know, but like I said, it’s hard to know for sure.

The second category of Muslims are those who know about the doctrine but secretly reject parts of it. They do it secretly because it says in the doctrine they are not allowed to reject any of it, and also because in many parts of the world it is physically dangerous to reject any part of Islamic doctrine publicly. I believe this group is another ten to twenty percent of Muslims. That’s just a guess.

The third category is the biggest. These are Muslims who don’t know what their own doctrine says. They grew up Muslim, their parents were Muslim, and they never thought of having a choice about being Muslim, but they’ve never been interested enough to find out what Islamic doctrine says.

With an understanding of the three categories, I can now explain that I do not hate “Muslims.” What bothers me is that people in the first category — the true believers — are successfully exploiting the third and very large category of ignorant Muslims, and successfully fooling most of the non-Muslims.

And even that doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that the true believing Muslims are successfully exploiting and fooling so many people simply because people refuse to look. It’s not like the information is hard to find. The ignorant Muslims have not taken the time to explore their own doctrines enough to accept or reject them. And the ignorant non-Muslims essentially refuse to look. They make assumptions instead, and self-righteously defend their assumptions. But the doctrines are widely published and abundantly available. That’s what really bothers me.

I feel like Winston Churchill must have felt during the 1930’s. He read Mein Kampf. The book was available for anyone to read. Churchill was trying to get people to simply look, but for the most part people did not want to look for fear of what they would find. What a frustrating, angering situation. That’s why I appear frustrated and angry sometimes when I’m talking to people. It is not hatred toward Muslims. It is anger at our ridiculous situation: A group is actively working toward a terrible goal which has been widely published in the open, but so many people do not want to know about it. Under the circumstances, I think intense frustration is a normal response.

Anyway, when I explain it this way, I think people better understand my passion for the subject and see it differently, and that helps them listen to whatever else I have to say. It prevents them from “shutting their ears,” so to speak. It prevents them from just dismissing what I have to say (because they won’t listen to “hatemongers” or prejudice people).

If you feel the same way, try explaining it to people when you can see they are misunderstanding your passion for the subject. And tell us how it worked (or didn’t work) on Talk About Islam Among Non-Muslims.

Egypt has not undergone anything of the sort. Street protests by a few percent of the population is not a democratic revolution. The majority of Egypt’s 80 million people have not made their feelings known. Nor can they make their feelings known except through a democratic election. Protests by different groups with widely varying agendas are not a substitute for elections. Anyone calling for Mubarak to step down, rather than to hold free and open elections, is not endorsing a democratic revolution– just a revolution led by leftists and Islamists.

2. “This is a struggle for freedom and democracy.”

Freedom and democracy are not synonymous except in political speeches. Polls show that most Egyptians are less committed to freedom, than that they are to Islamic law. If that is the case, then democratic elections will lead to less freedom, not more. Democracy is not the same thing as freedom, and conflating the two is empty rhetoric. It sounds good in a speech, but fails as an argument.

3. “Mubarak is a dictator”

Mubarak is certainly not your Uncle Fred, but Egypt is still one of the more freer and open societies in the region. Especially when compared to Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE and many others. The fate of Christians and women is not likely to improve in a parliament with a strong Muslim Brotherhood presence. Removing Mubarak will strengthen the position of groups who are far more totalitarian than Mubarak.

4. “As Americans we should support democracy in Egypt”

Kefaya, the National Movement for Change, is an anti-American organization. It is already allied with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptians may do as they please, but why should we support the removal of a pro-American leader by a coalition of lefitsts and Islamists? Shouldn’t our national security take precedence over perpetrating another Iran in the name of “democracy”.

5. “It’s in our ideals to support a people’s struggle for self-determination”

It’s not in our ideals to support people who bomb churches and murder little girls. Most Egyptians want to see Muslims who leave Islam executed. Mubarak doesn’t. Most Jordanians want the right to kill their daughters or sisters when they dishonor them. King Hussein doesn’t. Do our ideals really call on us to support church bombings and the murder of little girls in the name of democracy? And isn’t placing democracy above human rights ideological fanaticism?

6. “How can we support a dictator over a democratic movement?”

Why do we have to support either one? Why can’t we let the Egyptians work it out themselves. It is their country after all. We’re not the rulers of the planet. We could just stand on the sidelines and worry about our own problems. Like that massive deficit.

7. “We have to take the chance that everything will work out!”

Is that how we make policy now by hoping for change? Tossing a coin and betting with our national security and the lives of 80 million people

Then how do you explain all the Islamic terrorists who were born in the United States and the UK. Or why Lebanon is overrun with terrorists, but Turkmenistan isn’t. Why are English Muslims more radicalized than some Muslims in the Middle-East?

9. “Many revolutions have worked out well”

How many of them were in Muslim countries?

10. “Fear is an unworthy reason to oppose change”

Irrational fear is an unworthy reason. Fact based fear is not. Pretending that the changes you want will not empower the Islamists is irrational. And an irrational argument that appeals to emotion is unworthy.

11. “If we don’t support the revolution, that will inspire anti-Americanism”

Now who’s using the fear based argument. Besides isn’t this kind of thinking how we ended up with the Islamic Republic of Iran? Helping anti-American governments to avoid being hated is almost as smart as punching yourself in the face to avoid being bullied. Besides is there any possible course of action we could take that won’t lead to us being hated?

12. “The longer Mubarak holds on, the worse it will get”

How do you know? Isn’t that just repeating ElBaradei’s talking points. Egypt has faced food riots before. And the riots already seem to be dying down. The big crowds are disappearing. Coalitions are conducting their own talks with Egypt’s government.

13. “We should have faith in the Egyptian people’s capacity for self-government”

What have they ever done that justifies such a faith? And why do Iran and Turkey seem to have far more faith in their capacity for self-government. Maybe they know something we don’t. The Turkish people brought terrorist supporting Islamists to power. The overthrow of the Shah brought the Ayatollah Khomeni to power. Elections in the Palestinian Authority brought Hamas to power. Thanks to its elections, Hezbollah is now running the table in Lebanon. Having faith in people doesn’t mean standing around a bad neighborhood while waving your wallet in the air.

14. “President Bush’s freedom agenda has been vindicated”

Kefaya is the backbone of the protests, a group that formed partly in response to the Iraq War. Kefaya is as indicative of his agenda as Code Pink was. Bush never sought to overthrow Mubarak.

15. “Not all of the protesters are Kefaya and the Islamists”

That’s true, but mostly irrelevant. It’s the organized groups that will dictate a settlement, not the individuals. Kingmakers will emerge from this, and it won’t be the faces in the crowd. It will be their leaders.

16. “If the Muslim Brotherhood wants to participate in elections, who are we to say no”

We are the people they are at war with. It is not in our interest to help our enemies come to power. It may even be in our interest to obstruct them from coming to power.

17. “If we wait any longer, the Muslim Brotherhood will take over anyway”

That might happen. But why move up the timetable?

18. “This is Egypt’s last chance at a liberal democratic government”

How do you know? Why is it the last chance in 2011, rather than 2015 or 2025? Where is the proof behind all these scare tactics. How do we know that a more gradual transition won’t better pave the way for that. Why are we being panicked into taking a gamble here and now?

19. “If freedom wins in Egypt, it will win around the world.”

So far the targets of this “freedom movement” have been somewhat moderate countries allied with the United States. I wouldn’t count on it spreading anywhere beyond that. And once those countries are Islamist, then freedom really will be over and done with.

Islam and the Egyptian Political Future

Today we see the politics in Egypt in change and the question of the day is “what will happen to the government?” The details cannot be known, but the future will probably be some version of the past a past is driven by Islamic political doctrine.

All Islamic political doctrine is determined by the example of Mohammed. His rise to power was not by winning elections, but in the use of armed force. Mohammed averaged an event of violence on the average of every six weeks for the last nine years of his life. He may have been the prophet of Allah, but his rule was in parallel to other absolute rulers.

Historically, fascism was a political system in power in Italy in the middle twentieth century. Today, the term has come to mean:

• An authoritarian political system with a strong leader who is glorified.
• Mass demonstrations play a political role.
• Totalitarian rule without an opposing political party.
• Militaristic–advocate the use of force to advance the ideology.

Even the casual observer can see that Islam has many of these features.

Political Domination

Mohammed is the ideal Islamic leader. He rose to power by force of arms—jihad. Jihad was critical in his rise to total and absolute power.

The Sunna (the perfect example of a Muslim life) of Mohammed is found in the Hadith (Traditions) and Sira (his biography). The three texts, Koran, Sira and Hadith, are named the Trilogy. If it is in the Trilogy, it is Islam. If it is not in the Trilogy, it is not Islam. Here is a chart of how much text is devoted to jihad in the Islamic texts:

Jihad is a large part of Islamic doctrine. It is not a verse or two, but a dominant theme. In his jihad phase, Mohammed attacked his nearest neighbor and then the next nearest. He attacked with propaganda and the sword. This remains Islamic hegemonic political doctrine.

Islam’s political purpose is for the entire world to be under Sharia law.

The Elimination of Political Enemies by Force

Islam started as a religious ideology in Mecca, but in Medina it quickly moved to the use of lethal force by men sent out with orders to attack commercial targets, kill, capture and take all wealth. The captured victims were ransomed, executed, enslaved and tortured. The size of the forces ranged from single assassins to small bands and armies.

This military philosophy was so important that it was given a unique name—jihad. What is so brilliant about jihad is its civilizational scope. Armed force was merely the final stage in a system of war against all Kafirs. Jihad is practiced by armed force, speech, writing and cash contributions through charities. (Note: the inner or spiritual jihad is mentioned in less than 2% of texts.)

The graph below shows the efficiency of jihad. The conversion rate went from about ten a year to ten thousand per year.

Jihad has been the most effective system of military force known to humanity. Today, no one kills for Julius Caesar, Napoleon or any other military leader of history. Kafirs die daily because of jihad. Approximately 270 million Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and Africans have been destroyed by jihad over the last 1400 years.

Islam created the word “assassin”. Mohammed repeatedly used assassins to eliminate his political enemies, including artists and intellectuals. A partial list includes:

Person

Al Ashraf

Abu Rafi

Marwan’s Dtr.

Abu Afak

Rifaa b. Qays

Function

Poet

Poet

Poet

Critic

Tribal Chief

Source

Bukhari 5,59,369

Bukhari 5,59,371

Ishaq 995

Ishaq 995

Ishaq 990

A Partial List of Assassinated Intellectuals and Leaders

Strong Leader

When Mohammed died he did not have an enemy left standing. All Arabs within his horizon were Muslims. He absolutely and completely dominated all political life in a unified Arabia. Mohammed is the perfect example of an Islamic political leader. He was absolute in his power. He was the judge, lawgiver, military leader, intellectual leader, spiritual leader, and political leader.

He rose to power through his own efforts and became the ultimate strongman. He did not leave behind a process for Islam to choose leaders other than imitating his methods.

Nationalism

All Muslims are a part of the umma, the Islamic community or nation. This concept goes beyond the usual geographic boundaries of nation. The al Qaeda idea of restoring the caliphate is based upon going back to a supreme leader who rises to power and rules all Muslims as the global umma.

The umma means that every Muslim living in a Kafir nation has two allegiances—the nation and Islam. Islam demands that a Muslim’s first allegiance is to the umma, not the nation. Therefore, the Islamic version of nationalism is umma-ism.

Mass demonstrations

Islam does mass demonstrations and riots like a symphony orchestra plays Bach. Demonstrations are a political tradition. The Islamic mass demonstration is so common that we do not really see the brilliance and perfection that in their execution. Mass demonstrations and riots are happening in Europe and we will soon feel the pressure of them in America when Islam has greater numbers.

Over time Political Islam dominates every country where Islam was introduced. At some point in the process, street riots, mass rallies and assassinations become part of the political process of domination by Islam, until complete political dominance is achieved.

Israel and Islam

At first Islam was kind to the Jews, but in the end Mohammed exiled, enslaved and annihilated every Jew in Arabia. This is recorded in the Trilogy. Examine the next chart:

There is less Jew hatred in Mein Kampf than in the Trilogy. Hence, Islamic texts can be compared to Mein Kampf. Ask this question: if Egypt becomes more Islamic, as the Muslim Brotherhood wants, what will the new Egyptian policy be towards Israel?

Conclusion

Islam has fascist qualities. The next government in Egypt will have a fig leaf of democracy, but if the past is any guide it will be fascist in it implementation and rule. Egypt will become more Sharia compliant, which is bad news for all Christians in Egypt.

There doesn’t seem to be any problem with forcibly deporting Muslims … from Dubai

How many times have we seen a Muslim immigrant who makes speeches openly calling for the overthrow of our government, and who is not deported? Or, is convicted of rape or other serious felonies, or spends their entire life here collecting welfare and health insurance, or in many other ways drains the resources of the kuffar while providing no concomitant benefit, and yet is immune to deportation?

We are told that the deportation of Muslim immigrants back to their ancestral homelands, to the lands where they spent their childhood, to the lands where the local language is their primary language and the local customs are their own familiar customs, would be a warcrime akin to genocide. We are told that everyone has a right to come here, that our borders must remain open and immigration must remain unfettered. To place any sensible limits on immigration is to be xenophobic and racist.

And yet…

In Dubai, Bangladeshi workers, who build those skyscrapers and scrub those toilets and drive those trucks and generally keep the place humming, went on strike. They talked about organizing themselves and starting a union. The government of Dubai responded by immediately starting deportation proceedings against them.

The fact that they are fellow Sunni Muslims is not as important as the fact that they are not ethnic Arabs. In the eyes of their overlords, they are inferior and they are easily replaceable. A dime a dozen, or more accurately $200 a month per worker on average.

The Bangladeshis had the temerity to ask for an additional $50 a month, and without even a “fine how do you do,” they will be immediately thrown out on the next flight. Next!

There will be no enraged Muslims marching in protest. There will be no denunciation from the UN or the “human rights organizations.” There will be no case filed at the International Court of Justice at the Hague. There will be no newspaper headlines, nor man-on-the-street interviews on television.

DUBAI: Dubai authorities plan to deport more than 50 workers from Bangladesh who took part in a rare strike to demand higher wages in another sign of growing labor unrest in the former Gulf boomtown, a diplomat said Wednesday.

The expulsions highlight the strict measures used across the United Arab Emirates to discourage protests by laborers, mostly South Asians brought to build the skyscrapers, hotels and other mega-projects that have risen in the past decade. But workers have become increasingly outspoken as prices rise and companies cancel projects after Dubai’s property bubble burst in 2009.

An estimated 5,000 mostly South Asian workers staged a nearly two-week strike this month to press for a 200 dirham ($54) pay hike from Arabtec Holding, the biggest construction company in Dubai. The workers — who live in company-run camps — make between 700 and 800 dirhams ($190 and $220) a month for basic jobs and slightly more for more skilled positions.

The consul general for Bangladesh, Mohammed Abu Zafar, said police rounded up suspected strike leaders and were moving ahead with deportations.

“Intelligence people identified them and are being deported to Bangladesh,” Zafar said.

He said the other workers agreed to return to the job, but did not receive any promises for pay hikes.

Arabtec officials declined to comment.

Strikes and other labor protests are still uncommon in the UAE, where migrants workers fear arrest or deportation.

Emirati officials, meanwhile, have taken some steps to improve living conditions for workers and curb other abuses after complaints from rights groups.

At a news conference in Dubai, Human Rights Watch said that the situation for migrant workers in the UAE remained dire against the backdrop of a worsening economy. The New York-based group, however, acknowledged that the government has announced “positive labor reforms” such as more oversight of recruiting agencies.

Construction companies across the country “exploited or abused migrant workers in numerous ways,” the group said, citing unsafe working environment, movement restrictions and withholding workers’ travel documents among violations.

Hundreds of laid-off migrant workers have been stranded in labor camps without electricity or running water for months as construction work halted across debt-burdened Dubai, the group told reporters as part of its 2010 world report.

The UAE’s Labor Ministry — in a statement carried by the official news agency WAM — said the UAE “dealt with” the job losses due to the global economic downturn “in an orderly fashion and workers continue to enjoy wage protection.” Earlier this month, laborers at a Dubai labor camp staged a work stoppage after a melee with security guards, who they accused of abuses.